Stormblood, стр. 36

I held my silence as the switches were flicked, snapped and locked into position. Was there anything I could tell them? No. Every piece of information led back to Artyom. And the moment they realised the connection between me, him and Harmony, we were all dead. I’d protected him from our father, from gangsters. I was going to protect him now.

My shib display flickered as my suit jumped to life, ghostly warnings squirming along the voxels. The readouts of my HUD disintegrated into dust. Instead, the surfaces were oozing with black mould, growing thorns that glistened wet with toxins, icons reforming into cracked skulls. The nightware was already inside.

Lasky’s fingers danced over a panel. Additional straps shot out of the cradle, clamping tight around my elbows, waist and knees. Going tight, tighter, crushing me down. I gritted my teeth, twitching hard in my restraints. ‘No need to be tough in here.’ Lasky tapped the wall. ‘Soundproof. Scream as much as you like. You’re on your own, big guy.’

They were about to file out when Hideko pointed to the chair’s keycard. ‘Hey, sling that around his neck. He’ll go bonkers trying to get at it.’

‘Good idea!’ Lasky carefully draped the lanyard around my neck, leaving the keycard resting on my heaving chest. Their footsteps echoed away and I was left alone with the nightware.

I couldn’t break out of my restraints, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I worked up a feverish sweat as I struggled in my cradle, breath sawing in my throat. The stormtech lanced from rib to rib, battering against the closed cage of my chest like it was trying to smash through. The keycard drew my gaze like gravity. I made a desperate attempt to wriggle out of my wrist restraints and grab it, but what the hell was the use? I went limp in my cradle.

I was utterly and completely screwed.

I choked out a laugh. Earlier today I’d been browsing a shopping plaza with Grim and arguing about what to get for lunch. In following my brother, I’d made one hell of a misstep. And the worst part? No one was coming to save me. I’d be screaming insane by the time Grim alerted Harmony. Assuming they even found me in the broken maze of the Warren.

I could only try and hold out. If I survived the nightware, maybe I’d find a way out of here.

My HUD thickened with dark smoke. The server room walls peeled back, as if they were a mere illusion and the true, bleak reality of the world was being revealed, some place I’d never escape. I was in the decrepit hallway of some abandoned house or mansion, full of rotten timbers and flaking walls. I could see the mangled remains of animals, piled up in the corners. Razorwire and creaking cages dangled from the ceiling, full of slithering, unrecognisable monstrosities. Behind me, something skittering, writhing, feeding in the darkness. Fresh sweat broke out on my forehead, my chest and neck, but it wasn’t until I gasped the warm, muggy air that I realised my armour was heating up, my rebreathing filter lowered, cutting off fresh air.

The smoke coalesced, with agonising slowness, into a twitching figure. The monster was a grotesque amalgamation, as if parts of different predators had been grafted together in a horrific experiment. It stalked towards me on four mangled legs, claws scraping wood, a blood-curdling growl building in its massive chest. Yellowed bones jutted out through torn, muscle-bound fur. A rotten spine peeked through the mottled skin like the ridgeline of a mountain. Parts of its body were violently fused in a gristle-coloured exoskeleton. The monster’s mouth was locked behind a rusted metal cage, stitched into the flesh. Behind the wide bars, jagged lips peeled back, revealing rows of black, tombstone teeth. Its torn nostrils flared as if smelling my scent while small, furious eyes rattled inside a hollow skull. Its jaw opened wide with a sickening oozing sound. Acid, gristle and ropes of bloody drool blasted through the cage and into my face.

Nothing more than a cheap visual effect, cooked up with a few lines of code.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

The monster’s eyes glinted as I went rigid with tension, restraints working hard to keep me cemented in place. The temperature was rising and rising, breathing becoming harder and harder.

It was turning my suit into a furnace.

The nightware construct burst into a raging fire. Thrashing flames blazing up its twisted body, its flesh and fur burning, bones crackling. It hunched over me like a towering inferno and pressed its dripping, burning face inches from mine. Locked my gaze before roaring out an evil, ear-splitting shriek, smoke streaming out of its mangled jaw and into my lungs. I jerked back on panicked reflex, away from this blazing world of smoke and fire. In my augmented vision, my armour was beginning to melt into my flesh with the heat, as if to prove it was real.

My chest tightened, stormtech rolling inside me and any shreds of thought evaporated as I battled to breathe, my throat and lungs burning. The Rubix was testing how little oxygen I could survive with, how fast it could dehydrate me. My body churning sweat out like a pump as I fought for breath.

Then the noise started. Talons raking metal, the shrieking of tortured animals, punching through my ear drums. Growing louder, louder, until I didn’t think there could be any louder sound in the universe, then louder still. I thrashed helplessly, aware that I was screaming, though my own voice was drowned out, cocooned in this infinite sound. A vibration kicked into my suit. Crawling up my spine into my nervous system. Every centimetre of my inner suit was shuddering, sandpapering my skin. Shaking me until my vision blurred and my teeth rattled together. I tried to set my jaw. I wouldn’t beg. I’d won the Reaper War. I’d survived the battlefield and seeing my friends being blown to bloody